


Winter's Ghost, Storm's Lady

by PanBoleyn



Series: Know What You're Fighting For [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:15:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/483962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a relief, to ride south and marry the nephew of the Southron King.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter's Ghost, Storm's Lady

**Author's Note:**

> So, the brainstorm for the combination of both these pairings - and the character Aislinn, caught in the middle - came out of nowhere during work one day, and voila!

They say she looks like her mother, and that is why Queen Roslin can barely stand to look at her. Aislinn is born the heir to the Winter Crown, as they come to call it in later years, the iron and copper crown her father wears now. That lasts only until her half-brother Torrhen is born, when she is four years old, but Aislinn never forgets those first four years.

Her first memory is of her father carrying her around the half-rebuilt Winterfell on his shoulders, and the cold bitterness in her stepmother’s eyes. Her second is also of Roslin, the triumph on her face as she cradles baby Torrhen. All her life, Roslin’s brown eyes are there, watching her and hating her for what she cannot help, for the fact that her father still whispers her mother’s name in the night. Or so they say.

Never mind that she cannot even remember Jeyne Westerling, the mother who died bearing her, the secret queen as they call her. Jeyne was the woman Robb Stark wed because he took her virginity, the wife his bannermen convinced him to hide so as not to anger the powerful Frey clan. There would be time, they said, to placate the Freys, and to keep your little Westerling wife, if only you keep quiet for now. In the end, he didn’t have to, since all he would have had to hide was a little daughter.

And a king lacking for accessible heirs could not afford to do that.

Aislinn knows all of this, and from time to time she considers confronting the Queen, demanding to know why she blames her when she had nothing to do with it. When she is just the product of it all. But Uncle Jon, who understands better than anyone, tells her to leave it. He’s her favorite, since unlike her father he doesn’t look at her with the shadow of grief in his eyes, so she listens.

When the day comes for her to ride south, to the Southron kingdom ruled by Renly Baratheon, Aislinn wants to be sad that she is leaving her home forever, but she’s not. All she can think is that this is the end of her life as a ghost, a reminder of her mother and a past that she cannot deny, but does not own, either.

She rides south without regrets, save that she won’t be able to see Uncle Jon and Aunt Myrcella regularly - all she knows about dealing with being the ghost in the castle, about being a princess and hiding her true thoughts, she has learned from them - and as they go south, her relief only grows. She likes the look of Storm’s End immediately, the strong castle against the cliffs, waves crashing against them. There is a wildness here, like there is at Winterfell, but it’s a very different kind.

And the Lord… Edric Baratheon is a legitimized bastard, and the true son of his father if the rakish smile and the undisguised heat in his blue eyes when he meets her are any indication. Aislinn smiles back, brown eyes dancing.

They say Jeyne’s eyes are the first thing Robb Stark fell in love with. Aislinn doesn’t know if Edric feels the same about hers, but she finds him as attractive as he obviously finds her, the jet-black hair and brilliant blue eyes making her catch her breath. Dark blue, not the bright Tully shade of so many of her family.

Best of all, whatever Edric sees, it is her, it’s no one else. Storm’s End has its own ghosts, she will come to learn, but she doesn’t care. She is not one of them, she is the Storm Lady who is far more at home falling asleep to the sound of the surf than she ever was listening to winter winds. Edric murmurs her name in her ear, he thinks of no one else when he sees her, touches her, and that is all she’s ever wanted.


End file.
